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Jennifer Connelly's tearful press conference

Friday, September 11, 2009 | 05:20 PM ET

Jennifer Connelly holds back tears while speaking about the one-year anniversary of her father's death during the news conference for the film Creation. (Mike Cassese/Reuters)

A lot of the talk in the first 24 hours of TIFF has centered on Jennifer Connelly, co-star of the opening-night film, Creation. The picture is a biopic about Charles Darwin, with Connelly’s real-life hubby, Paul Bettany, in the lead role. Jelena Adzic blogged about her run-in with Connelly on the red carpet last night, where a reasonable question about religion – the film is about Darwin – provoked the wrath of Connelly’s publicist.

At the Creation press conference this afternoon, Connelly was reduced to tears while relating a histrionic moment at Astral Media’s swanky TIFF gala soiree Thursday night. According to a report in the Globe and Mail, John Riley, Astral’s president of television networks, thought that Connelly and Bettany deliberately skipped the party. In a protest reminiscent of Sinead O’Connor’s diss of the pope, Riley dramatically tore a photograph of Connelly in half. “This is my former favourite actress,” he proclaimed. “I promised my kids we would shake hands.”

As it turns out, Connelly and Bettany were there – they just didn’t stay that long. At today’s press conference, Connelly explained.

“My husband and I did go to your party last night but only very briefly and I had to leave early because yesterday was the first anniversary of my father’s death.”

Comments

Leo

TORONTO

What an idiot Riley is..

Posted September 11, 2009 08:25 PM

Melissa D

Wow, Andre, you're just as unprofessional as your colleague Jelena. Such juvenile sniping - are you trying to descend to the level of the Toronto Sun, or those infamous British tabloids? Is this the CBC or TMZ?

This isn't film festival coverage - this is gossip. Leave it to Perez Hilton - he's better at it than you hacks.

Posted September 11, 2009 08:27 PM

Julius No, Ph.D.

Actors, like mad scientists, are people too.

Posted September 11, 2009 08:53 PM

Jeff

Newmarket

She is such an incredible person that deserves so much respect. Something that is so difficult to come by these day's.

Posted September 11, 2009 10:07 PM

Chrissy

Toronto

What a way to treat a guest.

"swanky" soiree?? The behaviour of the CEO indicates otherwise.

Posted September 12, 2009 12:50 PM

Darren Tucci

Mr Riley: your repugnant behavior is akin to a child not getting their way on the school playground. Grow up. Maybe if you would have checked your sources - and you're immature attitude - and not acted out like some boorish lout, perhaps you would have acted differently. Just perhaps.

The fact that Mrs. Connelly chose to go to your "swanky ... gala soiree", let alone the TIFF, when such a hugely emotional anniversary coincided with those days proceedings, shows me unequivocally that she has immensely MORE class and grit than you ever will possess.

Grow up, sir, and be the real man you apparently AREN'T and apologize to Mrs Connelly. She is at the very least deserving of this. You DO owe her at least that much.

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About the blog

The 2009 Toronto International Film Festival runs Sept. 10-19. Over the course of the festival, CBCNews.ca is keeping a blog, which houses all manner of TIFF-related intelligence, from quirky movie events to celebrity sightings to how the annual event transforms the city of Toronto.

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